


blood & ichor

by itskittypryde



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: F/M, Read at your own discretion, Rough Sex, Switching, camilla is equally hardcore or more than henry, fluffy ending tho, self indulgent kink scene, switches being switches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:22:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28718010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itskittypryde/pseuds/itskittypryde
Summary: Camilla and Henry like to slip around with each other. It always involves being a little rough. This is the account of one of those times.
Relationships: Camilla Macaulay & Henry Winter, Camilla Macaulay/Henry Winter
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	blood & ichor

_ Sleeve. _

The sleeve of her shirt is the first thing that unveils her skin, as it goes up, rolled up and later thrown onto the floor. Her arm is not immaculate, scratches and bruises from having met the gods and having lived to tell the tale. She undoes it herself, the off-white of the fabric’s constraint not a burden no more. Don’t tell me what you’re going to do to me, she says. Do it, she orders. Camilla gets rid of the shirt, a brief defiance glinting.

Henry doesn’t reply with words. His tall, broad body pushes her back, and she hits the wall loudly. He’s all over her, lips everywhere but on her. His eyes slice her in half. Her chest resists the forceful trap of his arms, pinning her back, riding on momentum. She manages to free one of her arms, pushes two of her fingers into Henry’s open mouth. A gasp for air comes from him. Or the start of a moan. The weakness of the moment makes him relent, stumbling back. Her hands are cold, the fingertips he licks freezing his own lips, not usually this warm.

They fall onto the bed, Camilla gaining territory as she leans all her weight on Henry’s chest. She doesn’t hesitate, she is movement, calculated and swift. Her hands are almost instantly on his throat, but she doesn’t press. She gets close to his ear, and whispers something. Teeth nibbling, moving to a harsher touch further down the neck and to Henry’s collarbones. He lies down for a second, enjoying the bliss before he retaliates. His eyes no longer on her, gone somewhere. I said do it, she repeats. And he does. The two roll around and suddenly Camilla is under Henry’s body, and he is gripping her jaw like he wants to break it. And maybe he does, and maybe she wants to break his as well. They wrestle. Camilla is not going to let him leave it at that. She waits until he is close enough, pushing her into the mattress, and then bites hard, right where his hair ends, the place where the neck and the shoulder meet. She wants him to bleed. And suddenly, he wants it too. Neither of them mind hurting themselves anymore, not with the room becoming all the space they could ever find, not with the world closing in on them. 

Henry doesn’t stop gripping her jaw, even though he flinches at the bite, from shock and pleasure and rage. And it is rage, legendary archaic fury, what drives him to grab Camilla by her hair and get up from the bed, dragging her with him. Still with blond hair between his fingers, he says, take it off me.

The shirt. He means the shirt, Camilla understands. His sleeve is the last thing to touch his skin before she drops it next to hers, long forgotten. Button after button, her still firmly in his grip, they become undone. He then pushes her to her knees, letting go of her hair. But Camilla is not going to give up so easily. Her strength is always the most unexpected thing about her, and Henry adores that. So he is as pleased as usual when she drags him with her. It is fast and her nails, though short and gnawed at, still manage to leave vertical scratches on his sides. Down on their knees, both of them, the pace slows down. A trial. The challenge of each other’s eyes, fixed. Slowly, without looking, Camilla undoes the button and fly of her light brown trousers, and starts sliding her belt off. Henry’s chest is heaving, breathing deeply with an expectation and images of what he will do next, images juxtaposed on top of one another without an order and the desire to do it all at once. She uses the belt to pull him towards her, and without kissing him, not yet, she gets close, dangerously close, to his bottom lip. Teeth like claws, she makes him bleed.   
  


_ Blood. _

His blood tastes sweeter than ichor, merely human and yet expansive. Henry licks his lip. The locked connection between them is overloaded with power, crackling energy, and Camilla has done what could make it explode. The slow interlude will disappear, and the floor seems to sway and turn into a cliff’s edge. She is not jumping, though. She is going to make him do it himself. And he does, just like he’s done everything else for her, reclaiming the space between their mouths, swallowing the distance and kissing Camilla like he wants to push her back onto the bed. She drops the belt she was holding, containing a spasm of pleasure caused by the tension and the control and the kiss that feels like a dénouement, but is only actually the inciting incident. Henry bleeds somewhere else: Camilla’s nails are digging into his naked back. They are the only hint he has that she is enjoying this. That, and that she’s ordered him to do it, of course.

Henry’s blood has a metallic taste in both their mouths.

His hands are quick. They slide down to her hips, which are already rocking back and forth almost imperceptibly, accidentally, instinctively. His thumbs tiptoe around her skin, making their way under the brown fabric, pushing the trousers down. His lips move from her mouth, leaving a trail of dry blood across her jaw, chest and breasts. Red is in their eyes as well, in the alarm and urgency of the other’s touch, in the way Camilla holds Henry by the jawline, up and expectant as she rises and slides free of the trousers. She looks down at him from her new height, one of her feet kicking him back against the wall, where she originally was. The silence is screaming, and a smirk is showing in both of their faces, stained with their wine-dark desire.

Henry is now sitting against the wall, and Camilla does not hesitate to sit on his lap, straddling him, making him feel her, warm against his legs. She grabs his hand, and makes him touch her, past her underwear and reservations, now a thing of a very distant past. He slides his fingers into her, and the gasp she lets out is exhaled against his lips, warming up the blood, a pleasant wound still open, its pain vaguely present as a satisfying proof of having a living body. The rhythm increases, poetry beating on her shoulder, whispers in ancient languages drawn with his tongue, the grip of Camilla’s hands on Henry’s nape tighter, her throat now uncapable of staying silent, trying to keep the sound to herself and failing at it. Rocking back and forth against him, not a surrender but an openness, strength in vulnerability, aggression and softness next to one another as a form of defence.

She gets louder, and Henry groans with her. The usually crystal-clear voice that speaks specificities is now husky, breathing her name into her ear, Camilla, Camilla, Camilla. Please, Camilla, he is saying, please, give me this pain. Kill me with your harshness. And she does.

  
  


_ Skin. _

This is the order in which the rest falls: first, the belt around Henry’s hips, sliding off and to the ground. Then, his trousers. And then, the rest of him. His hand moves out of her, and she becomes a violent velocity that reaches for Henry’s throat and pins it to the wall he is sitting against. Her other hand, in a display of frightening duality, caresses his hair, swept and disheveled. Her smirk is there, the whole time, knowing this is what he likes, what she likes, what they’ve known for a long time even before touching each other. She stands up and, without letting go of Henry’s jaw, lifts him up with her. She leaves bite marks everywhere around his shoulders, covering Henry’s mouth with her hand when he moans. Shut the fuck up, she says.

She reaches down and slips her hand under Henry’s underwear. He feels warm, tight, ready for her. But she is not going to give him what he wants, not yet. She feels him up, applying pressure whenever he starts relaxing. His gasps are unknown to the outside world. Just for the two of them. She kisses him possessively, aggressively. She eats up his moans, his yearning roughness. Camilla goes back down to her knees, undresses what is left of Henry, and takes him in her mouth. Her hands go to his wrists, keeping him leaning against the wall, inevitably at her mercy despite her being the one that is kneeling in front of him. His skin is soft, independently of where she’s touching him. Except his hands, the only part of him that tends to be uncovered, internally or externally. Those are as rough as she is being with him.

Camilla can’t go too far, because she knows if anyone gets exhausted, it is going to be him. And she needs him to go for a while longer. There are so many things she wants him to do to her. She stops after a few seconds. Looks up. Same smirk, ever-present. Henry, far from smiling back, lets this unleash his anger. What does she think she’s doing? The player, with everyone at her mercy. Maybe that’s what things are like outside of this bedroom. But not now. His skin becomes a burning mess, and he grabs her by the hair and pushes her back where she was. He pushes himself into her mouth. Did not tell you to stop, did I?, he asks her. And she can’t physically smile now, but inside, she is satisfied. This is the ferocity she needs, the one she wants to express. She needs them both to fight at the same level. Henry knows it too. It is often difficult for him to express whatever is going on inside him, and yet Camilla manages to bring it to light every single time. Through fighting her and through having sex with her, and in a way it’s all the same. And whenever someone gets him to open up and snap, then it’s over. But not for her. Because she is like him, too.

_ Fuck. _

That’s what he says, when she starts using her tongue as well as her lips, back and forth and all over him. He’s pushing her but he can feel that she’s happy to move on her own too, and it’s not until he decides it’s time to switch things up that he lets go of her hair. Now it’s him who grabs her by the neck, and quickly swaps their positions. Camilla is now standing, but not with her back to the wall. Her cheek feels the wallpaper, which would feel cold had Henry not just been lying there. It’s hard. It’s hot. Henry pushes her against it, and undoes her bra with one hand. He whispers in her ear. Are you going to be good, Camilla?, he asks.

She is looking to the side, but that doesn’t stop her from being as defiant as she likes, as defiant as Henry likes her. Nah. She says it casually, almost nonchalantly, and a chuckle follows. Things happen fast after her response. He pulls her towards him by the neck with one hand, tugging at her hips with the other. Well, he says, not making a big deal out of it, not treating the frenzy with any seriousness, maybe you will change your opinion in a bit. And then he pushes her back against the wall, and a few days later, Camilla finds a bruise in her shoulder and she knows it’s from this night. He traces her side, scratching more and more as he realises he can control himself less and less. He pushes himself against her, not inside her. She tries. Camilla tries to grab him, to position him, but Henry is too strong. He grabs her wrist and twists it behind her back, and they both know it’s the same exact movement that could sprain joints. She is scared, mostly of herself. Of the way she could fight back if she wanted to. Of the way she knows how to crack those big hands of Henry’s like they’re nothing. And in the way she refrains from doing that, in the space between fighting and not fighting, there is their vulnerability.

Henry slides up his free hand, all the way into Camilla’s short blond hair. He grabs a fistful of it, pulls down ever so slowly, ever so firm. He’s got her. Locked in by the wall, by his body, by his mouth, which now starts leaving little bites around her ear. Are you mine, Camilla?, he asks. She, with her cheek to the wall and her head in his hand, hesitates. No, she says softly. I am– but her words are broken by a gasp, hers, as Henry twists her wrist further, bites down harder on her neck. We are our own, Henry says. I know, he says. I will ask again. Right now, Camilla, he says, are you mine? It feels like years, like epochs, to both of them, this time that they spend letting the truth linger between them. They are fully naked, both of them. Skin against skin. Henry lets go of her wrist and slides his hand down, perilously close to her sex. And Camilla breathes in slowly, and says, yes. Yes, I’m yours, Henry. I am. And that’s when he goes in.

  
  


_ In. _

He is in her, not just inside her. He pushes in, struggling against the tightness of her. She gasps, pleading for air to a forgotten god. He is in her. In her head, in her heart, in the tingles of her whole body heaving under him. Madness is intoxicating, and this time it catches her by surprise. Henry would disagree, but she knows instantly that no bacchanal could come close to the way she loses her mind at that particular moment. He takes it all so slowly, it makes her angry. It makes her want to thrash around, destroy him so he gives in to the fury, so they might tear each other down and die in satisfaction. But that is exactly why Henry won’t give his all to her just yet. Anger is scarier if it does not surface. He pushes in even more, stealing breath from Camilla, and then out, almost. Back and forth. Gripping her hair even tighter. Holding onto it as he goes in again. To her, it’s the tide, rising and falling inside her, filling her up then draining her. It’s a lack of thought for anything that doesn’t involve the sensation she is submerged in. She realises that, if she wasn’t his before, she is now. At least for the few hours they now can have together. She is his and he is hers, and right now, he is disorientating, overwhelming, all-consuming. His hair brushes her face – he is sweating. He is losing his mind too. It takes all his energy to control himself when Camilla orders, give me more. But he can’t. He knows if he can’t control himself now, he won’t be able to control himself at all. It is a fine line, even now. He pushes in again, and again, and again, finding a stable rhythm. The only stable thing in this room, apparently. Henry feels himself coming undone as he fucks her. Bit by bit, inch by inch, losing himself inside her. She feels warm, hot, alight around him. She grabs his ass and pushes him further in. A moan follows, and they’re not sure whose it was because both are losing their senses. Henry, Henry, Henry, she says. Hold me tight, fuck me harder, Henry. There are rising quartets of strings in her head, dangerous drums, subtle crescendos in her mind, and he is the conductor. There are duels and battles and wars, and he is causing them. Shit, Henry, she says. What are you afraid of?

And the dam on his control breaks. Still inside her, he holds her up, lifts her legs and carries her onto the bed, grabbing her hips and falling on her. It’s a flood in his chest, when he digs himself in. There is no way to win. They’re both bound to lose to their unbridled wants. Shivers run up Camilla’s legs as Henry hits her ass, open hand and unmerciful. She would sink to her knees ten thousand times if he asked her. With his other hand, he pushes her head into the bed. No grunt comes from him, only the scorched sweetness of consensual violence. Camilla and Henry have tried softness. Most of the time, they prefer this. To them, this is making love. And they would not trust anybody else with this. But oh, the bliss of each other pushing for limits they haven’t seen. He grabs her by the shoulders, lifts her up so she is on his lap, their knees on the bed as he thrusts into her. Her back is against his chest now, and Henry sees her gasping for air. Instead of giving her what she wants, he gives her what she needs. What she asked for. 

He reaches for the belt, and ties it around her wrists, now powerless behind her back. He takes his time. Let’s do this properly, shall we, Camilla. He grips her throat with one hand –the sides of it, never stopping her breath completely– and one of her breasts with the other. The firmness almost makes him melt down into the bed, but the feeling each deep thrust gives him stabilises his head. What do you say, Henry says. Where are my words of gratitude? And before Camilla can say anything, he moves his hand from her breasts to her clitoris, hard and needy the way he expected it to be. He rubs it tentatively, or as tentatively as he can while still fucking her. His speed slows down, but his intensity does not falter. Every thrust is as deep, or deeper, than the previous one. Camilla can barely talk when she says, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, she gasps. That’s what I like to hear, Henry says, and he applies more pressure to her clit with two fingers. He moves them in little circles, applying the pressure every time he thrusts into her vagina. She starts to tremble, but he has her in his arms. He won’t let her go, hand still on her neck. He kisses her neck, all the way up to her ear, and whispers, you truly are mine now. Look at you. Golden like nectar, lovely like blood; hardened like obsidian, ethereal like ichor.

  
  


_ Ichor. _

When it starts drowning them, it is slow. It is slow, the way they started it all, but admittedly, it comes earlier than they planned. It always does – the outcome of the dangerous game they play is predictable, but they never have the foresight to call it when in the midst of it. Rookie mistake, perhaps. They don’t care. They welcome the flood, the drowning, the death.  _ La pétite mort _ . It comes slowly but surely. It shows itself in the way Henry, not Camilla, starts faltering in his movement. His stubbornness carries him through it. It shows itself in the jolts of Camilla, even before she is close enough. It shows itself in the way she pushes Henry’s hand into her even more, showing him that she wants him to work faster. Her clitoris feels swollen, her heart needs more space in her body. Her lungs, more air. She likes it, being deprived of what she needs and at the same time being given all she wants. It’s the confusion she gets off of. The clarity and the mess in her head. The current that climbs up from her toes to her legs to her ribs to her breasts to her throat, closing in on her, searing with pleasure. Everything but her clitoris, Henry’s hands and the feeling of him inside her blurs a little, disappears under a layer of numbed darkness. And ichor glows bright in the dark.

It pulses through Henry’s veins and becomes a clustered ache at the back of his head, pushing towards his eyes. It concentrates around his genitals, and the only way to drink more of it is to go harder. With Camilla’s help, he touches her all the way towards it, as they both edge closer and closer together. The road narrows, their skin burns, their touch kills. There is no way but up, up, up. 

And the flood bursts. They shake, shudder, wrap each other, knowing they won’t hold up much, their resilience slipping out by seconds. Their bodies turn to gold, a Midas touch on their soul; their blood catches fire. It’s an ascension and a spark, and the spark turns to fireworks, and the fireworks expire in the sky over their heads. Ichor flows.

  
  


_ Sigh. _

Henry lets out a sigh. Camilla feels wet, slippery, like water, and knows Henry has finished inside her. No matter – she’s on the pill. They hold each other carefully, with reverence. He stays inside her for a couple more moments. They’re still up, sitting on their knees, skin sticky with old lust. No one speaks. Camilla nods softly, indicating to him that she’s ready for him to slip out. Even so, she whimpers one last time as she loses the stretch and the sex of this man that fills her up so well every time. She starts dripping, and Henry passes her a towel as he wipes himself with another one. She folds it twice over, and sits on it. She is content, for now.

They sit on the bed again, him opposite her this time. She holds her knees to her chest. She takes a while to empty herself of him, but they both are patient. Still naked, they observe each other. Glinting with sweat, hair messier than anybody will ever see it. They don’t know if this is love, but sometimes it really feels like it. 

Later, the duvet welcomes them with its soft embrace of down. Henry whispers, come here, and holds her from behind, and Camilla is happy to be the little spoon. She twists one last time to see him, before they fall asleep. They look into the other’s eyes and see the sparks that had flown through their bodies moments before. They’re theirs to keep. When Henry and Camilla look at each other, they always see ichor.


End file.
